Coffee and Cabe
by dS-Tiff
Summary: It's now four weeks after the events of 'A Lie in the Sand' and the team are no closer to reuniting. Toby and Happy have had enough and they reach out to an old friend, desperate to start putting things right.


**_I'm still remaining optimistic about the future of Team Scorpion. This is my latest attempt to put them back on the road towards straightening things out. I hope you enjoy it, all comments welcome, thank you kindly!_**

 **COFFEE AND CABE**

"Coast is clear, Doc. You're on."

"What about him, eleven o'clock? Blue shirt. He could be a spy."

"Toby!" Happy twisted in her seat to face him, gripping the steering wheel tightly. "Get outta the truck. This was your idea."

"I know, darlin'," agreed Toby. "It's just… if we get seen it could be deadly. For me, specifically, seeing as you're staying in the truck."

"Someone has to keep watch," retorted Happy. "Just in case we need to make a quick getaway."

Toby raised his eyebrows, knowingly. That wasn't the real reason she didn't want to accompany him on this particular mission, but he understood. "It's kinda weird being back here," he noted. "Kovelsky's parking lot. The scene of the happiest day of my life."

"Yeah," agreed Happy, but there was little joy in her voice. "We had a lot of good times at this place."

Toby squeezed her hand. "And we'll have plenty more."

Happy looked at him. "You really think so?"

Toby nodded. "I do," he replied with determination. He glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "OK, I'd better go or he'll think I chickened out."

Toby leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on Happy's lips before jumping out of the truck and striding purposefully towards the door of their favourite diner. They hadn't been back since the day they'd walked out on Walter and their lives had turned upside down. It had only been four weeks, but it felt like a lifetime ago.

The familiar smell of greasy food hit Toby as soon as he stepped inside. He paused in the doorway, flashing a half-hearted grin at one of the waitresses who responded with a wave of recognition as she balanced two plates of hot dogs and fries in her other hand. So many memories…

Then Toby saw him and he took a deep breath and steeled himself. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation…

The other man got to his feet as Toby approached the table. Toby immediately recognised a variety of emotional markers, just as he'd expected. Anxiety, anger, fear – that one was slightly surprising, but there was also warmth and affection.

Toby exhaled slowly, using every technique he knew to keep his own emotions in check and crossed to the table with his hand outstretched. His palm was sweaty, but there was nothing he could do about it now. "Cabe," he said, keeping his tone even. "Thanks for agreeing to this."

For a moment Cabe didn't respond. Toby gave the older man a moment to gather his thoughts. Eventually he took Toby's hand in a brief, but firm handshake. "Doc," he said.

Toby let out a tiny sigh of relief. Cabe had used his nickname, it showed he still felt a familiar connection. And the handshake itself had been full of tells. Toby started to form a picture of Cabe's emotional state and it was more encouraging than he could have hoped for. Then he noticed the tray of doughnuts on the table and he grinned. "Chocolate glaze, my favourite!" he exclaimed. "You remembered."

"Don't get too carried away, they were on special," explained Cabe as he sat down again, with Toby taking a seat directly opposite and helping himself to a doughnut. "I ordered coffee, too. Figured we'd need it."

Toby nodded. "So, um, you sure Walter doesn't know you're here?" he asked.

"Unless he's got Florence spying on me then he has no idea," Cabe answered. "He's out of town for a couple days, trying to secure a contract in Oregon."

"Flo still part of the team, then?" Toby queried. He was a little surprised. Surely having Florence around only served as a reminder of how badly everything had ended with Paige?

"Walt needs the manpower," replied Cabe, narrowing his eyes. "Or is that brainpower? His old team abandoned him… remember?"

Toby pressed his lips together. He wasn't at all surprised by the bite in Cabe's voice. Toby felt pangs of guilt every day for walking out on Walter, but it had been necessary at the time. They'd had no real choice. His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the coffees Cabe had ordered. The waitress put them down on the table and smiled at them both.

"Haven't seen you guys in here for a while," she noted.

"My new Hat of Invisibility must be working," replied Toby with a grin. The waitress rolled her eyes and shook her head as she walked away.

"So, why did you call me?" asked Cabe, gruffly. He folded his arms and Toby acknowledged the classic defensive gesture with a nod.

"Well," began Toby. "I've got four weeks' worth of insults to throw your way and I don't wanna waste 'em. Like, hey Cabe, you're so old when you were a kid rainbows were black and white, or, or… oh, I know, you're so old your blood type has been discontinued… That's one of my favourites."

Cabe glared at him in silence and began to blow across the top of his coffee. He'd missed Toby, more than he cared to admit. He missed the whole team, he missed his family, but he was still harbouring a lot of dark thoughts about what had happened and he was in no mood for joking around.

"Hey, cut me some slack," urged Toby. "I'm trying to ease the tension with my sparkling wit."

"I'll ease the tension with my fist if you don't cut to the chase," retorted Cabe. "I feel kinda uncomfortable about sneaking around behind Walter's back, considering how we wound up like this in the first place."

Toby acknowledged the validity of Cabe's point with a nod and his grin faded. "I'm glad you stayed with Walter," he said eventually.

"I bet you are," retorted Cabe. "Couldn't wait to see the back of the old man."

"That's not what I meant," insisted Toby. "I mean, I'm glad you have his back. You may not believe this, but I still care about him. I hate that we're in this situation."

"You could have stayed too, y'know," Cabe pointed out. "Sly and Paige… well, I get that they were mad, but…" he paused and let out a slow breath before continuing. "You and Happy just left."

"We had to walk away," Toby tried to explain. "Look, the way Paige reacted was way outta line, but not entirely unexpected. We tried to warn Walt and he didn't listen. He could have prevented this, but he's so goddamn stubborn that he refused to take our advice and look what happened. That hurt, Cabe. Usually I love nothing more than being right, can't beat the feeling of getting one over on One Ninety Seven, but not this time. You know, Happy and I… we didn't intend to quit Scorpion that day, but we just had to make like Elvis and leave the building. See how I made an old timers reference there, just for you?"

Cabe ignored the dig. "Maybe you didn't intend to quit, but you walked out," he pointed out, narrowing his eyes. "Why didn't you come back in day or two after things had calmed down a little?"

Toby sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Paige offered us jobs," he replied, flatly. He sipped at his hot coffee, allowing the familiar taste and aroma to awaken more happy memories, all the good times spent at Kovelsky's with the team after successful cases.

"So you quit for the money?" replied Cabe incredulously.

"No… well, kinda… I guess," admitted Toby. "Y'see, Cabe, we're… Happy and I… we want to adopt."

Cabe's eyes widened as he absorbed this new information. He already knew all about Toby and Happy's fertility troubles, of course, but this was the first he'd heard of their new plan. "Adopt?" he repeated. "You mean a kid?"

"No, we thought we'd go for a bear cub," retorted Toby. "Yes, of course I mean a kid! Maybe two… or more. The point is the adoption agencies want us to prove that we're reliable and responsible parents, that we have a steady income. Paige offered us jobs and, well, we talked about it and decided we had no choice."

"And the chance to rub Walter's nose in it made your decision easier?" asked Cabe.

Toby hung his head in a rare display of humility. "Happy and I didn't want any of this," he tried to explain. He lifted his head again, deliberately making eye contact with Cabe in the hope that he would see the truth in them. "Scorpion is our home, our family. I'll admit, I was so angry with Walter at the start that I enjoyed swiping jobs from under his nose, but I didn't think it would be permanent."

Cabe nodded. "Truth is, as ugly as that day was, I didn't think it would be permanent either."

"It doesn't have to be," noted Toby. "That's why I called you, Cabe."

Cabe narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. "You think there's a chance? You think the team could get back together? The whole team?"

"I don't know about Paige," Toby admitted reluctantly. "She's not in a good place right now…"

"Neither is Walt!" exclaimed Cabe.

"Hey, I'm not picking sides," insisted Toby. "I know Walter's probably taking this hard, he has no idea how to deal with a break-up on this scale."

"I'm worried about him, Doc," admitted Cabe. "He's… regressed, I guess you'd call it. Worse than I've ever seen him. He mumbles equations to himself, he's rude to clients, he's even gone back to wearing a neck-tie."

"Oh, the symbolism of the humble neck-tie!" exclaimed Toby. Then his brow furrowed with genuine concern. "Does he talk to you very much? About Paige? About Scorpion?"

Cabe shook his head sadly. "I've tried, so has Allie, but he shuts us out." Cabe raised his hand and caught the attention of the waitress. "Could we get some more coffee?" he asked. "Strong," he added.

Toby ran a hand slowly over his beard. He knew exactly why Walter was acting the way Cabe had described and he knew if he carried on then things were only going to get worse. "If only he'd listened to me," he said. "I know our friendship isn't exactly a bromance, but he's always respected my opinion… most of the time. And Happy's really upset, Walt always listens to her, he always takes her advice. Not this time, though. Turns out we were right and he was wrong… what a shocker!"

"Where is Happy?" asked Cabe, his face lighting up at the mention of her name.

"Waiting in the truck," Toby explained.

Cabe's face fell. "Oh," he said. "So, I guess I should ask you about Sly. If we're really going to try to reunite the team we need to get Sly on board. Right now I don't know how I feel about that."

Toby nodded, he completely understood Cabe's sentiments. Sylvester's reaction had taken them all by surprise. Toby realised – and so did Cabe, he hoped – that Sylvester had been totally humiliated by Florence admitting her feelings for Walter just as he'd been about to ask her out after weeks of preparing himself, mentally, to do so. However, no one had expected the younger genius to lunge at Walter the way he had. Walter's response – calling his younger friend a baby - had undoubtedly crossed a line, but that kind of immature response was typical of Walter. Physical violence was so far away from being typical of Sylvester that neither Cabe, nor Toby, could quite believe it had happened.

"Sly? Sly's fine," replied Toby, with a dismissive wave of his hand. At Cabe's surprised look, his expression changed completely. "I'm kidding, Cabe. He's stacking books in size order, he's getting through a whole bottle of hand sanitiser every day and he's convinced Mark Collins is watching our every move. The kid is so close to losing it, I'm not sure how much longer I can hold him together."

"Jeez," Cabe replied. He took a moment to absorb the implication of Toby's revelation. He hated to think of Sly in such a troubled state. "It was so out of character, Doc. Why did he react like that?" he asked. "Why did he quit Scorpion? He was the first one to walk, even before Paige."

"Because it was walk, or collapse in a huge, messy puddle of anxiety," Toby tried to explain. "It took him weeks of trying to reconcile his growing feelings for Flo with his deep, eternal love for Megan, but he'd finally got there. He'd reached a place where he felt ready to make a move on her, but then to have it taken away from him in such a humiliating way, in front of everyone, it was all too much. To use the medical term, he flipped. He lost the plot."

"Hmmm," Cabe pondered the explanation. He'd never once felt any anger towards Sylvester before that day, but he'd hated seeing the way he lost control. He wondered what might have happened if he hadn't pulled Sylvester away. Walter had been totally unprepared and he'd had no time to react. Cabe couldn't imagine for one minute that Sylvester would intentionally have hurt Walter, but neither of them had been thinking straight so who knows what the end result might have been? "Walter shouldn't have resorted to name-calling, that was outta line," Cabe admitted. "But I don't think he knew what he was saying."

"I guess not," agreed Toby. "But those words are gonna play on Sly's mind for a long, long time. Walt stirred up one of his greatest insecurities and prodded it with a red hot poker. Now Sly's psyche is telling him that he doesn't deserve to be happy and that all of this is his punishment for betraying Megan. He's a mess, Cabe."

"Poor kid," responded Cabe in a quiet voice. "Talking of insecurities, how's Paige?" Cabe's initial anger towards her had receded a little over the last four weeks, mostly thanks to Allie who had been able to give him a little female perspective on the events that had unfolded in the garage that day.

"When did you turn into Mr Perceptive?" grinned Toby.

"Not me, Allie," replied Cabe. "I told her everything, of course, and she figures Paige's reaction could have something to do with her being abandoned by Veronica as a kid. Is that true?"

"Y'know, Freud was a quack, but he was right about one thing," Toby replied with a nod. "It's all the fault of the parents. Paige's mother left her - repeatedly - and that takes its toll on a developing child. Add to that the way the wonderful human being that is Drew treated her, plus Tim cutting ties so quickly and it all adds up to a ticking time bomb of insecurities."

"I expected better of her, though, Doc," said Cabe. "I know Walter should've told her about going to that lecture with Flo, but I thought Paige might've handled it with a little more maturity."

"OK, just think about this for a minute," began Toby. "When Walt and Paige finally got together, after three years of dancing around how they really felt about each other, what's the first thing they did? They made out in a closet. When was the last time you made out in a closet?"

Cabe thought for a moment and then a small smiled crossed his lips. "Senior prom… Annie Bannister," he replied as he dragged up a memory he hadn't thought about in over forty years. "She had the cutest dimples…"

"I don't need to know the rest," Toby cut him off, screwing his face up in mock disgust. "Senior prom… So you and Annie were, what, seventeen?"

Cabe nodded, then his smile faded as he realised what Toby was implying. "Not thirty something," he said, exhaling sharply.

"Exactly," nodded Toby. "We all know how emotionally immature Walt can be, but I didn't see Paige putting up much of a fight in that closet, did you? Veronica drifted in and out of her life when Paige was growing up and parts of her psyche are still trying to reclaim the childhood she lost. So she makes out with guys in closets, she throws tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants, see where I'm going with this?"

The waitress appeared with two coffees and Cabe flashed her a gracious smile as she put them on the table. "I know Paige has a fiery temper," he said as the waitress took away the empty cups before leaving the two men alone again. "I've seen how she uses it to protect the people she cares about, but not to hurt them? It was… it was ugly, Doc."

"Paige has a lot to work through," Toby replied. "I'm not defending her actions, but it runs deep, Cabe. Much deeper than even I realised. She could be more messed up than the rest of us put together."

"Those dumb things she said," continued Cabe. "Surely she doesn't really care about those things? I thought her and Walt had a good thing going."

"You're right, she doesn't care about those things, not really," agreed Toby. "I mean, who breaks up over parsley? But in that moment she was totally overwhelmed by her emotions and it prevented her from being able to vocalise her true feelings, so instead it spilled out as all those petty, trivial things. She was saying the first words that came into her head because she wanted to hurt Walter. To get back at him for the way he hurt her."

"He took a friend to a lecture, that's all," said Cabe with a disapproving shake of his head.

"I know, but Paige saw it as so much more."

"And what about now?" asked Cabe. "I take it you've talked through all this with her?"

"Not as much as I'd hoped yet," admitted Toby. "Every time I try to get her to open up to me her defences go up. And we've been so busy I haven't had much time to work on getting through them. She knows the way she behaved was appalling, though - I can read the guilt all over her - but she doesn't know how to put it right."

"Does she want to get back with Walter?" asked Cabe.

Toby shrugged. "That's the million dollar question isn't it," he answered. "She still loves him, I know that much. Do you think Walt wants to get back with Paige?"

Now it was Cabe's turn to shrug. "I think he still loves her, but he's so… sad. All the time, Doc. It kills me to see him like that every day." His face became grave and Toby realised just how much everything had affected the older man. "I already lost my beautiful daughter," continued Cabe, his voice close to breaking. "And nothing will ever match that feeling… the emptiness, but… goddammit, Toby, this is as close as it gets. It feels like I lost another five kids and a grandkid all at once."

Toby nodded, knowing no words would be enough. "OK, so we have to set this up," he said after a few reflective moments. "Step one – rebuild the team. Step two – get Walt and Paige communicating and see what happens."

"Sounds like a plan, Doc," agreed Cabe and a small grin spread across his lips.

"We should keep in touch, but watch your step," Toby warned. "If Walt gets suspicious he'll hack into your phone before you can say…"

"Team-Centipede-is-a-stupid-name?" suggested Cabe with a wink.

Toby chuckled. "Yeah, quicker than that," he agreed. "Thanks for the coffee and doughnuts," he added.

Cabe scowled at Toby and pulled out his wallet. "I didn't realise it was my treat," he said, but he didn't really mind. He would hand over all the money he had if it meant there was a chance he could get Team Scorpion – his family – back together.

"It's good to see you again, Cabe," said Toby, earnestly. It felt slightly weird not to be adding a condescending jibe, but this really didn't seem like the right time.

Cabe nodded appreciatively and the two men got to their feet. "Good to see you too, Doc," he said, warmly. "You can be the biggest jackass on the face of this earth sometimes, but… you saved my life in the desert and then you saved me from cracking up when you got me talking about my father's death…" he trailed off, determined not to get emotional in front of Toby. He knew the shrink would have already figured out exactly how he felt and he didn't need to put it into words.

Toby slapped him on the shoulder affectionately. Cabe had been a better dad to him than his own father had ever been and Toby couldn't imagine his life without Cabe, or Scorpion, now. Despite everything. "Hey," he said suddenly. "Why don't you walk out with me? I think someone would love to see you."

Cabe beamed. He couldn't wait to see Happy again. Then his grin faded slightly and he stopped and turned to face Toby. "Why didn't she come in with you?" he asked.

"Because she's gonna get emotional – so brace yourself," explained Toby.

They walked out to the car park together. As they approached Happy's truck, Cabe slowed his pace to allow Toby to reach his wife first.

"I told you I didn't want to see him!" hissed Happy as her husband leaned in through the open window. She gripped the steering wheel tightly, it was as close as she could get to wringing Toby's neck.

"Relax, Sugarpuff," Toby urged, softly. "It's just Cabe, he's missed you."

Happy gritted her teeth as her breathing quickened. She hated that Walter had put her in this position. She hated that Paige had reacted so badly – even worse than they'd ever imagined she would. She hated that Sylvester's mental stability was now balancing on a knife edge. She hated that her and Toby's adoption plans were temporarily on hold until their lives were back on track…

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar gravelly voice and her heart leapt.

"Hey, kid…"

Happy grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, almost sending Toby flying in the process. She didn't even notice her husband flailing around as she leapt out of the truck and ran into Cabe's arms.

Cabe enveloped her in the warmest hug she'd ever experienced. She buried her head into his chest and he stroked her hair as she fought - and ultimately lost – a battle with her emotions. Cabe made soothing noises as all the tension of the last four weeks came flooding out.

Toby, having just about maintained his balance, allowed them a moment before crossing to join them. He exchanged a warm glance with Cabe and the two of them were even more determined now to come up with a plan to reunite the team.

Eventually Happy broke away from Cabe's clutches and Toby threw his arm around her shoulder, planting a tender kiss on her temple as she regained her composure. "You OK?" he asked, gently and she nodded.

"Don't worry, kid," said Cabe. "This is probably the toughest challenge we've ever faced and definitely the most important, but Team Scorpion never fails, right?"

"Never," agreed Happy. "And I'm never giving up until I have my family back together."

THE END.


End file.
